Timestamp 3:22: Under Reagan Republicans tried to create a new government in place to replace what was in place since the New Deal. A New republican party, which split after WW2, was called the Movement conservatives wanted to get rid of New Deal and regulations and let business people run things to usher in a new economy. Their ideology in the beginning was honest, but as time went on, it was very self serving and contradictory.
Timestamp 7:47:Movement conservatives want to take America back to 1920 and are leveraging racism to convince voters that the basic social safety net that is backed by government money is going from white taxpayers to African Americans. His language focused on Government is not the answer and focusing on state rights to facilitate the Movement conservatives agenda and make it the centerpiece of the Republican party.
Timestamp 9:25: Toxic individualism is focused on the American cowboy, which represents the “reconstruction”. This is a throwback to after the civil war when the West claimed the East was socialist for leveling the playing field between African Americans and white men. Reagan picked up the cowboy imagery speaking up against activist government that has interest in regulating business and providing social programs.
Timestamp 15:48:Reagan doctrine changes our foreign policy rather than stopping communism to push it back against it. During Nicaraguan conflict Regan is concerned this will spread communism into Central America. They began to fund a Coup Group called the Contra’s, which congress later stopped funding.
Timestamp 18:44: Lebanese terrorists were being backed by Iran and kidnapped Americans and held them hostage. It was suggested by Israel that if Americans sold Arms to Iran it would sway them to put pressure on the Lebanese to end the hostage Crisis. It was illegal to sell arms to Iran at the time, although eventually they were sold and it made no difference. This is later revealed to the public, which showcased the toxic individualism. Individuals were later indicted for their involvement, & George H.W. Bush and Bill Barr are associated with it.
Timestamp 31:39: Great compression between 1933 - 1981 income compress in 1981 it Great Convergence (expansion). Wealth begins to move upwards and they believe it's helping the little people but it's the opposite. 1975- 1980 private wealth grew 31%, contradictory to him painting those as “horrible economic years” and in 1983-1988 grew 8 % economy growing slower. During this time, household debt rises. Republicans claim to be blocking special interest groups and federal taxes not rise, but to compensate state taxes go up to fund Federal interests. This is proved by the fact that the top 1% in 1979 20.5% of the wealth, whereas in 1989 (Reagan Era) they held 35.7%. During this time the budget is not balanced and we moved from a creditor nation to a debtor nation.
Timestamp In 40:50: Savings and loan institutions crash, investment bankers crash, privatizing profits fails. World belongs to the incredibly wealthy. In 1987 stock market crashes, and power of wealth transferred from the US to Pacific areas. Movement conservatives see Reagan's actions as not having gone far enough rather than not being effective.
Timestamp 57:09 : Newt believed he could put Republicans back in charge of Congress for the first time since the 50’s by getting rid of traditional, moderate republicans and replace them with Movement conservatives.
[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.
In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]
In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]
In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]
In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]
In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]
